Shatter
by Taywen
Summary: Team Minato breaks. It lasts longer for some than it does for others, but its destruction is inevitable. Spoilers up to chapter 604.


Disclaimer: Naruto does not in any way belong to me, it's the property of Kishimoto, etc.

Spoilers up to chapter 604.

* * *

Shatter

* * *

**01.**

They leave Obito behind, buried beneath a ton of rock.

Rin cries, unable to stop herself from thinking _this is your fault_. But to be fair, it's no more her fault than it is Kakashi's, right?

(Obito was the best of them, she thinks; he wasn't a particularly talented shinobi, but there was just something about him that was fundamentally _good_. Something that she and Kakashi lack; even Sensei's brilliance is tarnished, but Obito... Obito was good.)

Her eyes are dry by the time Kakashi regains consciousness, and she doesn't cry again.

They try to keep their crumbling team together, but Sensei gets called away to rally the frontlines, and Kakashi gets sent on increasingly dangerous missions. Rin gets left behind.

She works tirelessly at the hospital. The bone-deep exhaustion that is her constant state now is the only thing that keeps her grounded. She likes it best when her focus has narrowed down to the glow of chakra under her palms, the monotony of fixing broken things.

(The one thing that she desperately wants to fix is irreparable.)

She likes it best when she forgets about two geniuses, one as bright as the sun, the other dark as the moon, and the irrepressible boy who just wanted to make his clan proud.

Then she too gets called the frontlines as Konoha's medic population is depleted. It's harder to forget, seeing Sensei's sunshine hair or (more rarely, thankfully) Kakashi's dark eye, but Rin manages it.

And then there is the last mission that the shattered remains of Team Minato undertake together.

It's fast, brutal, efficient.

Kakashi embodies those principles, doesn't he.

* * *

**02.**

Obito sees Kakashi and Rin, but instead of the joyous homecoming that the event should be, it's a horrible nightmare.

(Obito never, ever forgets the look on Rin's face. The last time that he sees anything from his (Kakashi's) left eye, and it's the devastated betrayal on his crush's face. Perfect clarity and technicolor, courtesy of the Sharingan.)

Rin dies - Kakashi _kills_ her - and Obito feels like there's no more air in the world. This isn't how it was supposed to go. This isn't right. _Rin was never supposed to die_.

"Let's go back," he tells Spiral, his voice sounding weird and dead to his ears. But maybe it's actually fitting.

The _thump_ of Rin's body hitting the wet ground isn't muffled by the falling water; Obito doesn't look back, and he doesn't notice Kakashi following him.

If Kakashi even noticed his presence at all.

(But when has Kakashi ever given Obito so much as the time of day? Why should now be any different? Just because Obito thought he could trust Kakashi with _one job_.)

Obito bites the inside of his right cheek until he can taste blood.

(It hurts more on that side; the grafted body, or whatever the hell the old man had said it was, is far more sensitive than Obito's original body. And he wants this to hurt.)

He doesn't (won't) cry, because he's not the Crybaby Ninja anymore. He's not chasing after the ideal that Kakashi the genius embodied. He's not chasing futilely after a girl who will only ever be _nice_ to him, and he's not seeking the attention of a teacher whose time is better spent on his more talented charges.

Obito pushes the pain and grief and betrayal away. He'll see what the old man has to say; a world without pain or conflict or love is a better world, surely.

Obito doesn't want to feel anymore. Or maybe he wants everyone else to feel what he feels. He doesn't know what he wants, because the one thing that he had been striving for - being reunited with his loyal teammates - has turned out to be a lie.

* * *

**03.**

Kakashi doesn't know what he feels. Or maybe he feels too much.

(The days of believing in Shinobi Rule 25 are long gone, now.)

Obito stares at him with mismatched eyes, strangely reminiscent of the reflection that Kakashi tries to avoid as often as possible. There is nothing of Obito in those eyes; no defiance, or resentment, or mischievousness.

This Obito is cold, narrow and focused.

(Shinobi Rule 25, he thinks, but he's not quite hysterical enough to voice that thought.)

Kakashi feels relieved, somehow, that Obito didn't die crushed beneath a ton of rock. He feels guilty that they didn't go back to recover his body. He feels incredulity that Obito somehow _survived_ the cave-in. He feels betrayal that Obito should be the one behind the Fourth Shinobi War, that he should be threatening Kakashi's student- their Sensei's _only son_.

Mostly he feels numb. He feels like his life has been one big joke; Kakashi kept going after Obito, Rin and Sensei died because he felt he owed it to them. He owed it to them to make good on the things they'd given him.

He spent hours, days, months, even, standing in front of the Memorial Stone and tracing the familiar names because he didn't want to lose their memory or forget the things that they had sacrificed.

And now the catalyst for the change in Kakashi's life has reappeared, more or less whole, diametrically opposed to Kakashi's position.

"It's because you let Rin die," Obito says flatly. None of his old accusatory tone, or even the whine that used to drive Kakashi insane when he tried to weasel his way out of trouble.

(_Let_ Rin die, Obito says. Does he know the truth? Kakashi doesn't know. He tries not to remember; maybe his success in ANBU could be attributed to the fact that he'd already committed a heinous, unforgivable act before he even joined the black ops.)

Kakashi stiffens, and there's something like triumph in Obito's eyes. That, more than anything, convinces him that this is not the Obito he used to know. Obito liked to talk, but he wasn't a particularly malicious boy; whenever he said something genuinely hurtful, he always seemed to regret it immediately after uttering it.

He didn't enjoy hurting people for the sake of it. He didn't kill innocent people to access the tailed beasts others had sealed inside of them. He didn't start wars to bring about a false peace. This is not the boy whose memory Kakashi vowed to honour.

Kakashi regrets that Obito didn't die in that cave all those years ago.


End file.
